- Prioritize subjects for prelims - Polity - Economics - Environment - Geography - Mapping - Average of 10 questions each year, very high-yielding area - Mapping based on current affairs - History - Science and tech - Full paper attempt strategy - Attempt the whole paper in 3 rounds - These are: - 1st round -> Solve easy questions, mark as right check with the option and question both with. pencil - 2nd round -> Solve doubted ones, circle the doubted ones along with doubted options with pencil - 3rd round -> Attempt the random questions, asterisk (*) the difficult ones with pencil - Paper attempt checklist 1. Draw a horizontal checklist of 4 boxes with pencil beside each question - With each step in this checklist mark it off with right or wrong based on each step 2. Read the whole question paper in beginning and divide the questions into 3 - Mark the easy ones using a right check along with it's option with a pencil - Mark the doubted ones using a circle along with the doubted options using a pencil - Mark the random ones using an asterisk (*) with a pencil 3, Go with each question individually a. Did I read the question word by word? - Underline critical words: - NOT / EXCEPT / ONLY / ALL / CORRECT / INCORRECT - Numbers and qualifiers like “all of the above,” “none of the above,” “always,” “never.” - Extreme numbers like (e.g., “100%”, "0%”) - Figure out and mark the possible traps based on our developed trap list with pencil - Give enough time to get comprehension, don't rush - Mark the first checkbox b. Do I actually know the core concept? - Mark the second checkbox with right or cross check using a pencil c. Eliminate - Steps i. Eliminate the most obviously wrong options first - Mark cross with pencil ii. Compare the remaining ones with logic - Write the logic in simple words if possible - Mark right or cross with pencil iii. Compare with UPSC previous traps - UPSC often sets two close options; subtle word difference matters (trap check) - Mark right or cross with pencil - Mark the third checkbox with right or cross check using a pencil 4. Fill the OMR after every 10 questions - Fill the OMR collectively for 10 quesions on reaching 10, 20, 30, ... 100 - Mark the fourth checkbox of each question with OMR filling - CSAT attempt strategy - First attempt comprehension - Then attempt easy reasoning questions - Then attempt maths topics-wise based on ease, like distance, rate first, and permutation-combination later - MCQ Solving - MCQ solving for UPSC requires a fine balance between knowledge and aptitude, without aptitude knowledge alone won't suffice - With knowledge and practice, you will have to develop a natural aptitude for MCQ solving - MCQ solving is like playing cricket, most of the time you have to be on back-foot and play carefully, but then sometime you have to some to the front-foot with unshakable confidence to hit that six - Smart elimination technique is critical to meet the cutoff; 65% questions have to be guessed - Need to attempt 95+ questions based on intuition to meet the cutoff - Understand question framing by UPSC, very critical - Write it down structurally with examples - UPSC tries to direct and persuade students in the wrong direction with tempting options, detect this manipulation by UPSC to avoid traps - Do fundamental reasoning using first principle approach based on options - Read the question carefully 2 times, I often read questions wrong - Need to prepare as much information as possible for having context - For some CSAT MCQs, taking examples can be helpful to reach a solution in maths - Traps - Personal geography PYQ solving experience - Did not read the complete question, specially related to numbers and answering on based half of data provided, like - A question on climate gives temperature and rainfall values, but judging only based on temperature values - Misreading the question, like - It asked for which is "not", and I answered opposite way - It said 30° N and 60° S latitudes while I accidently understood 30° N and 60° N - It said regions in tropical latitudes, cyclone does not originate, and I automatically assumed equator, and assumed coriolis weakness, neglecting other options - I have done it multiple times, example I read "non-vegetarian" as exact, but in my mind I considered "vegetarian", made the question wrong - This is mostly when I get overconfident seeing a simple question - Mistakenly marking the wrong answer at the end moment due to pressure of time - It can also occur in questions which have multiple states, and these are combined in options, I accidentally mark the statement in answer instead of option - I have done it many time, as soon as avoid recheck, I end up marking a wrong option - Is a statement is right, does not mean it's also right in the context of the question, like - Radio waves are long length, but this is not the reason they are reflected by the ionosphere - Overconfidence in easy questions and not giving second reading and enough thinking time, like - Atmosphere is thick at equator, and getting overconfident and then reading the second option and forgetting about atmosphere and replacing with crust because of not reading again - Become very careful if there is any easy and popular statement used in the question - Doubting the basic things just because UPSC is difficult and it won't give such an easy option, like - Nearest start is sun, water is more important than ozone, etc - Getting the requirements of a question conceptually wrong - Some options are very different from others, mostly they end up as answers - It's a very risky rational, and ends up wrong 50% of time - Confusing one topic with another like - Confusing International Date Line with Prime Meridian and marking the wrong answer - Having fundamental loopholes in the existing knowledge base, like - Only associating Europe with harsh cold winter, while western Europe experiences mild winters and nominal rainfall throughout the year - Knowing that sedimentary are small pebble like rocks, while these can also be as big as mountains - Thinking that mediterranean climate only existed around mediterranean sea, while it also exists in Souther hemisphere too - Halo is produced by ice crystals and not water vapour - Considering that tropical rainforests have high quality soil, while the reverse is true that they have nutrient poor soils (laterite), clearing them leads to rapid nutrient depletion, making agriculture unsustainable - Random guess, almost wrong every time, these relate to the names of the people whom I have never heard - Major loss of marks here due to negative marking - Not trusting the fundamental over tricks - Most of the time, all of the above is the answer, but sometimes, there is an option which is violating the fundamental axiom, like the question which had option that ocean currents are surface phenomenon along with all other right options - Most of the options which try to point out to exact numerical values end up wrong, like - Sun's radius is this big in numbers as compared to the Earth and so on - But few of these options end up correct, specially in geography, there is a 50-50% chance - Topics of regular mistakes - Climate type of regions like China type, mediterranean type, etc - Forest types across the globe - Eliminating names of regions based on general understanding of language, like - St. Helens more familiar to USA then to Chile, Japan, Philippines, etc - UPSC tricking to choose wrong answer - UPSC providing a very simple option which most likely resembles the answer, but this is a disguised trap, become highly alert at this moment - Sometimes UPSC tricks a student by giving hints to tick a wrong answer, don't look a hint alone, look it alongside options - Most of the time in case of a 50-50 scenario if hinting is leading to a option, then it is wrong, other one is the right answer - Instead of finding if the option is right and wrong, this of ways how this option can be wrong to eliminate - In case of options with numbers, I observed a pattern, neither the right is too big or too small, it's just above the too small - My stats - My accuracy to reach last 2 options is very good, almost 90% of the time I reach last 2 correct options - But in case of no logic to decide further, I end up marking the wrong answer almost 65% if the time - Nearly 85% of my concept based questions are going right - Nearly 85% of mine map based questions or in general pure fact based questions going wrong specially related to lakes, falls, powerplants, etc - Challenge faced while solving MCQs - Not having trust on our internal data consumes more time and often result in wrong answer - Forgetting the exact mnemonics, I misspelled the mnemonic "Rama, Ghumti hui Ghaghra Ganda Ko karri Mahan" to "Rama, Ghumti hui Ghaghra Ko Ganda karri Mahan" and it cost me +2 marks and -1/2 marks - Confusing the name of the same entity with two different identities like "Son" and "Sone", while both are same, I got easy question wrong because I thought they were different - Solving all the PYQ based on limited knowledge is very important than gathering data based on PYQ and then solving them - All the data and skill to solve unknown questions is generated in first case and leaves blind spots to tackle random questions in the second case - It helps in developing the intuition, where UPSC is purposely trying to mislead you by putting a very appealing option - This is difficult to define logically, because I end up marking the correct answers as wrong assuming it's a trickery - Patterns observed in questions - The questions which have options only one, only two, etc, most of the time, only two is never an answer, I tried it multiple times and all the time it went wrong - UPSC often uses another name for the same thing like using "Kameng" instead of "Jia Bhareli" - To rule out an option - Look for cases which occur outside this option for example for an option "Wheat requires high temperature and heavy rainfall", think for cases where this is not the case like "Russia", who is the top producer of the wheat while temperature there is moderate and not high - Bling trust in a pattern is not a good way, UPSC plays on this - Enforce double checking of the whole answer based on question - When I start trusting more on tricks and less on fundamental reasoning I end up marking wrong - Generic analysis - There are only few types of pattern on which UPSC frames it's questions, these patterns can be mastered for accuracy and time - Not doing full analysis cycle on each option usually ends up in marking the wrong answer because of UPSC trap pattern - Time management - Give 1 minute to every question, if it's not understood within 1 minute, move on to the next question and mark it for future - While knowing the right answer, I sometimes end up marking the wrong answer - Do not forget the language while doing analysis, I have marked few questions which could have been easily solved by the language - Question where I don't have much information, I usually end up marking wrong - Almost 90% of the times when there is a 50-50% scenario, my marked answer is wrong - If the statements use words with possibility like "may", "can" etc, then that statement is usually right, and if there is use of extreme words like "cannot", "impossible", "always" etc, then that statement is usually wrong - Example: - Statements: - 1. The Parliament of India can place a particular law in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution of India - 2. The validity of a law placed in the Ninth Schedule cannot be examined by any court and no judgement can be made on it - Options: - a. 1 only - b. 2 only - c. Both 1 and 2 - d. Niether 1 and 2 - Analysis: - Statement 1 shows possiblity and statement 2 shows extreme nature, making statement 1 only highly probable statement - So, b is the correct answer - If the cover of a question is very broad, then it usually it covers most of the statements except extreme ones - Example: - In desert which type of leave adaptation? - Statements: - 1. Hard and waxy - 2. Small leave size - 3. Thorns instead of leaves - Options: - a. 2 and 3 only - b. 2 only - c. 3 only - d. 1, 2 and 3 - Analysis: - This is a nature question, which can be analyzed accurately using first principles thinking - To avoid water loss -> reduce surface area -> small size -> leading to thorns in some cases - Also, some known data about cactus like plants in desert which helps with all above statements - Understanding the words deeply to analyze the statements - Example: - How is the National Green Tribunal (NGT) different from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)? - Statements: - 1. The NGT has been established by an Act whereas the CPCB has been created by an executive order of the Government - 2. The NGT provides environmental justice and helps reduce the burden of litigation in the higher courts whereas the CPCR promotes cleanliness of streams and wells, and aims to improve the quality of air in the country - Options: - a. 1 only - b. 2 only - b. Both 1 and 2 - b. Neither 1 nor 2 - Analysis: - By understanding the meaning of words, we know that "Tribunal" is a body established to settle certain types of disputes and Board is usually for recommendation in polity sense - This above analysis makes option 2 highly probable of being right, now the confusion is only statement 1 which is dependent on some knowledge - In the above case, b is correct - (Fallible with trend) If two statements are very close relating to a particular topic, then one of them is usually wrong, giving the possibility of eliminating the option which contains both these statements - Example 1: - Which are right? - 1. In first Lok Sabha, the single largest party in opposition was swatantra party - 2. In the Lok Sabha, a "Leader of the Opposition" was recognized for the first time in 1960 - 3. In the Lok Sabha, if a party does not have a minimum of 76 members, it's leader cannot be recognized as the leader of the opposition - Options: - a. 1 and 3 only - b. 2 only - c. 2 and 3 only - d. 1, 2 and 3 - Analysis: - Two statements are related to leader of opposition, from the past analysis trend, most probably 1 should be correct - On the basis of some remebered data, there is a high probability statement 3 is wrong, which eliminates options a, c and d - Example 2: - Some survey data below: - Statements: - 1. Rajasthan has the highest percentage share of agricultural households among its rural households - 2. Out of the total agricultural households in the country, a little over 60 percent belong to OBCs - 3. In Kerala, a little over 60 percent of agricultural households reported to have received maximum income from sources other than agricultural activities - Options: - a. 2 and 3 only - b. 2 only - c. 1 and 3 only - d. 1, 2 and 3 - Analysis - Two statements are very close 2 and 3, both stating some 60 percent fact, high probability one of them is wrong from UPSC trends - From the known data about Kerala, we know that probabilty of 3. being right is high, as Kerala has one of the highest literacy rate in India, recieves one of the highest remittance from abroad, which leads to 2 being incorrect - But still, there is possibility of 2 being correct as it involves data about OBC which is backward and may be dependent heavily on agriculture, but we will go with previous observed trend of UPSC and eliminate optino a, b and d due to presence of statement 2 - In a multiple option type question, if a statement is looking right, then best way to confirm this is that if it is present in most of the options, then it's most probably right, and the option which do not contain it is wrong, example question 123 from Ancient India, in this example, statement 2 and 3 are present in 3 options but statemtent 1 is present only in 1 - Example: - With reference to the religious history of India, consider the following statements: - Statements: 1. Sthaviravadins belong to Mahayana Buddhism 2. Lokottaravadin sect was an offshoot of Mahasanghika sect of Buddhism 3. The deification of Buddha by Mahasanghikas fostered Mahayana Buddhism - Options: (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 - Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only - Mock tests - All toppers recommend giving at least 100 mocks from different institutes and maintaining a table to keep a record of each mock, like attempted, left, correct, incorrect, etc - Solving a lot of mocks is crucial to uncover different types of traps in questions, it builds awareness about the traps - List down all the traps encountered to improve MCQ aptitude